Family drops Taser claims against Erie police

All claims that Erie police officers caused the death of a 29-year-old woman by repeatedly shocking her with a Taser stun gun have been dropped from a federal lawsuit.

Family members of the late Talia S. Barnes filed an amended civil rights complaint Friday in U.S. District Court in Erie that abandons any claim that police used a Taser against Barnes during her arrest in 2011.

In a separate, related filing, the plaintiffs have agreed to dismiss all claims against onetime defendant Taser International Inc., which manufactures the stun guns.

In the initial complaint filed in April against Erie police and Taser International, Barnes' parents, Willis B. Barnes and Patricia A. Moffett, charged that Barnes' death occurred after police repeatedly shocked Barnes with a Taser after her arrest on July 1, 2011. They said she collapsed and was taken to UPMC Hamot, where she died on July 3, 2011.

The plaintiffs are now claiming, instead, that six police officers mishandled Barnes during the arrest.

The defendants have previously denied all allegations of misconduct. City Solicitor Greg Karle on Friday welcomed the dismissal of the claims surrounding any supposed Taser use by police.

"It removes from the complaint allegations which we believed were baseless from the inception," he said.

It is not clear from the filings on what information the initial accusations of Taser use were based.

The change in the complaint comes after Erie police in their response to the lawsuit in August denied any use of a Taser in Barnes' arrest.

In addition, in the paperwork that dismissed Taser International from the lawsuit, the lawyer for Taser International, Isaiah Fields, wrote that the Erie police case file on Barnes' arrest and video from the department shows "that no Taser ... was used on Talia Barnes during the incident giving rise to her death."

The Erie County Coroner's Office previously concluded that Barnes died due to a lethal combination of several drugs.

In the new complaint, the plaintiffs said police did not respond properly to her intoxicated condition and obtain help for her and ignored requests by witnesses to do so.

The plaintiffs further said the department inadequately trained officers on how to restrain someone and failed to train them, among other things, to "seek medical intervention for persons placed under arrest who show signs and symptoms of acute drug and/or alcohol intoxication."

The lawsuit said the department condones and encourages officers "in their belief that they can violate the rights of persons such as the decedent in this action with impunity."

Barnes' parents are seeking damages on behalf of her eight children.

LISA THOMPSON can be reached at 870-1802 or by e-mail. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNthompson.